Can Science Make Peace with the Environment? Science, Power, Exploitation

Abstract

This chapter develops a criticism of the current ideological conception of science as a purely cognitive activity, one which objectively reflects the true structure of nature and is superior to other forms of knowledge as the result of its rigorous method. Science is, instead, a historical process, arising from concrete persons who act in concrete environments. Modern science is a product of Western society in its capitalistic phase of development and thus has subsumed the same logic of exploitation both of nature and of the human labour force. The vast majority of scientists under every regime have acted as accomplices of power. This attitude is exacerbated by the falling rate of profit in the current crisis and is becoming absolutely unsustainable. Technique has become a “second nature,” deeply conditioning our lives and acting as a diaphragm with respect to nature. To orient science toward human development and truly ecological purposes, it is currently more important to analyse the limits, rather than the undeniable power, of science, its drawbacks rather than its benefits. An appalling portion of scientists work on war programs, making war increasingly terrible, and they are not denounced inside the scientific community. In this framework, the chapter analyses in particular the threat to global human health conditions—the “Epidemiological Revolution of the 20th century,” the inadequacy of the prevailing reductionist medical paradigm, and the need for a new biomedical paradigm and practice.

Higher intelligence is an error of evolution, unable to survive for more than a short instant in the evolutionary history (Ernst Mayr)

The sleep of reason produces monsters (Francisco Goya)

Nature to be commanded must be obeyed (Francis Bacon)